Saturday, April 14, 2012

Swamp Thing #8: Nothing Too Much

μηδὲν ἄγαν

Solon, the poet and law reformer of Athens, is credited with stating μηδὲν ἄγαν , nothing too much, or nothing
in excess. Emerging from a transformative pod, Alec Holland merges human and monster
into a new hybrid
Swamp Thing. Usually hybrids
arouse discomfort, fear, and make a poor for a party guest…unless you’re
partying in a desert for the fate of humanity, then a hybrid is a good guest—especially
if it’s the new Swamp Thing.

This Swamp Thing human-monster synthesis is something new
among monsters. Swamp Thing isn’t a complete monster, it still retains human
hopes, memories, and love, nor is it a full human, it’s able to morph its body,
fly, and the internal anatomy is more vegetive than meat. This synthesis
combines the best of human and monster and generates the core strength of Swamp
Thing. Metamorphosis synthesizes strength.

When flying into battle, Holland-Thing thinks in mint-green thought
box: “I am a man. I’m Alec Holland….But I feel my new body, too. This second me….It’s
like living in a haunted body. I’m still me, still Alec, but I feel what it
feels, too.” These thoughts inform readers of the duality of Swamp Thing as it adjusts
to its new body, and it also fits with the organic theme of the book. Alec
Holland has evolved into something new. The words of the Council of Trees to
Alec Holland echo from issue 7, “You will never be human again.” Alec Holland
has evolved into something post human…with really cool looking wings.

This organic factor seeps into the structure of the book
with the panel design. Once we shuffle from the destruction in the desert, the
panel divisions grow and tilt into wild borders. Readers will not find a
straight line or right angle anywhere in the second half of the book. Like the
fluid division of the panels, the synthesized Swamp Thing alters its body, able
to grow a shield and giant wooden claw to swoop away the backward-looking meat
things the Rot pits against the Green’s avatar. The transformative hero doesn’t
keep one form too much. It changes as the need arises and adapts and moves with
such adroitness that it battles through seven pages of the Rot’s henchmen
without ruffling a leaf on its wing. Swamp Things advance, and shape shifting
cease when it encounter Abigail Arcane’s new look.

The champion of the Rot, Alec’s old girlfriend Abigail
Arcane, is transformed into a giant chitinous armored form with extended
obtuse-angled teeth and disproportionate limbs, neck, and claws. This altered
form of Arcane is a pure monster. The emotions, the human cares, concerns, memories,
and values were shucked in the cocoon along with her human skin and hair, at
least in this issue. She hisses, states “Alec needs to die!” and punches her
claws through Swamp Thing’s torso. This action is not a humane way to treat
present or past lovers.

The distinction between the champions of the Green and Rot
is shown at the top of the second-to-last page. Swamp Thing’s head juxtaposed with the head of
Rot beast. Swamp Thing’s downward tilting eyes, the humanoid face, the spoken
name “Abby.” The human aspects of the post-human Alec render themselves clearly
in this panel. The monstrous nature of the dark Rot with green circular eyes,
those long teeth that Snyder and Paquette exhumed from the depths some
atavistic nightmare remain devoid of all humaneness. Yet Swamp Thing’s care for
Abby not only remains, but still motivates this swamp-human synthesis. In issue
7, Alec Holland told the Council of Trees “—what we [humans] offer you isn’t
power or strength. It’s restraint….Because it was your respect for prized human
qualities that made you great. Your compassion and empathy and prudence.” All these
prized traits of humanity come through the look on Swamp Thing’s face in this
panel. It reigns in violence from any excesses.

The threshing of Swamp Thing at the end of issue 8 won’t end
Swamp Thing (this is a comic book after all), but it does bring to question if
the humanity of Abby Arcane remains cached somewhere beneath the armored form
or whether it was exuded and abandoned amongst the fragmented discards of the
chrysalis of her past human body. Whether Abby’s persona remains or not, it was
the restraint and hope Swamp Thing exercised that provides the opportunity for
its recovery. After all, like plants, even rot transforms its state.

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Various arrangements of twenty-six signs provide me with endless fascination, enjoyment, frustration, and employment. I hope these reviews reveal something previously unnoticed in the comic and let you enjoy a good comic even more. If you're interested in what else is going on, check out ‏ @Sthdmrn